


Still Life with Blaine

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine stops by the Hudson-Hummel house to get something for the trip. Some time with Carole and one of her boys.</p>
<p>set within 5x11 (“City of Angels”), before the Glee Club flies to Nationals</p>
<p>warnings: focused on topics of Finn and loss, Carole POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life with Blaine

Carole is carrying a basket of laundry up from the basement when the doorbell rings, startling in the silence of the house, and she hurries up the last few steps to answer it. She sets the basket down and opens the front door, smiling automatically when she sees it’s Blaine on the other side. He’s dressed in his usual vibrant colors and a shockingly plaid bow tie, his smile wide but his eyes a little worried.

“Hi, honey,” she says with a rush of affection for him. “Come on in.”

“I’m sorry I’m early,” he replies, following when she steps back from the doorway. “We got out of rehearsal sooner than I expected, and I need to get home to pack for LA.”

“It’s fine,” she assures him, accepting his offered hug; he’s so much smaller than Finn was - it’s hard to think of when Finn was _ever_ this small; he must have been, since she can easily remember holding him in her arms as an infant, his tiny, fragile head fitting so neatly in her palm, but it feels like he towered over her forever - but he’s a great hugger, generous with them and filled with affection that’s easy to return. He’s such a serious, sweet, slightly strange boy, and she can’t help but love him dearly. “I was home.”

Blaine holds onto her for a moment, then pulls back. “I’ll only be a minute,” he says, apologetic, like there could actually be something here he’s interrupting. “Kurt wants me to take his good luck pocket square to Nationals. He couldn’t find it in New York to wear it while we’re competing. He says it’s either in his drawer here or Santana grabbed it when they were out of tissues. If it’s the latter, I think we’re going to hear the yelling from here.”

Carole laughs a little and hefts her laundry basket back up onto her hip. “Sometimes the distance between New York and Lima is a good thing, huh?”

Grinning in reply, Blaine says, “Sometimes.” He lifts his eyebrows at the basket. “Are you taking that upstairs? Let me carry it for you.”

“Thank you,” she says and hands it over. It’s not all that heavy, but it’s always nice to have help. Besides, she thinks as she follows him up the stairs, she might as well take advantage of having a teenage boy around while she still can. He’ll be following Kurt to New York soon, and even if they’ll be coming back for holidays, she’s sure, his departure will take away that last little remnant of illusion that her nest isn’t completely empty.

But he and Kurt will come back, she reminds herself, taking a steadying breath. The house might not be filled with loud, dramatic, ever-hungry teenagers every day anymore, but some of them will come back.

Blaine’s footsteps are light on the stairs, so different from Finn’s heavy thudding everywhere he went, but he takes them two at the time the same way. (Well, maybe not quite the same way, since the span is more of a strain for him than it was for Finn’s long legs, and if she feels uncharitable about the comparison it still makes her smile behind him.)

“You can just put that in front of the door to our room,” Carole tells him when they reach the second floor.

“Sure,” Blaine says happily, and he walks down past Kurt’s open door, past Finn’s partially open one, and deposits the basket in front of the master bedroom doorway.

“Thanks, honey,” she says, waiting by Kurt’s room.

“My pleasure,” he replies, and he seems so sincere about it that she has to believe him that it is.

It makes her smile again, because he’s such a _nice_ boy. She’s always liked him since Kurt first brought him home, just as a friend when he needed one most. She and Kurt have had plenty of talks about him over warm milk or cups of tea over the years, and she knows plenty about the highs and lows of their relationship, but at the end of the day Blaine is so kind and caring, so helpful, so eager to please, and so fun to tease on game nights - he takes the ribbing gently but always plays hard - that she’s happy for herself as well as for Kurt that he’s officially joining the family.

She can see why Finn liked and respected him. For such different exteriors, they can have a similarly goofy sense of humor, a similar boyishness, similar worries about self-worth, and a similar need for love.

Blaine’s a good person, and he’s filled with love she’s more than happy to receive. Kurt loves her, too, she knows, but he can be harder to get close to when he doesn’t want to let people in; Blaine, she thinks, will always let her in even when he’s having tough times, and she’s glad for the acceptance, for one son who will always be easy when she needs to show her love.

“Would you like some company while you look?” she asks.

“That would be great,” Blaine replies, as simple as that. “And you can be my witness against Kurt accusing me of messing up his drawers.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Carole follows him into Kurt’s room and sits on the edge of the bed while Blaine goes over to Kurt’s dresser.

“No, but you know how he can get.”

She laughs, thinking with a warm heart of Kurt’s sharp tongue and cutting way with words, so rarely turned against _her_. She’s always admired that about him, how readily he expresses his feelings, even when occasionally they stem from paranoia instead of actual fact. “I do.”

She smooths her hand over the rich fabric of the duvet cover with pleasure. She likes coming in here. It’s sparsely decorated compared to how it used to be when Kurt lived at home, but it’s still full of knickknacks and pictures, books and off-season clothes, so many little touches of Kurt. There are pictures of the Glee Club on his shelves, a trophy on the top of his dresser, and an array of pillows on the bed left plumped and ready for his head, like he’s going to walk through the door and lie down to do his homework, listen to music, or talk on the phone with Blaine like he used to be doing so many times when Carole walked down the hallway.

It makes her heart hurt that this sharp, clever, big-hearted boy she helped raise, if only for a couple of years, doesn’t live here anymore, but it’s a good hurt. It’s the pain of every parent with a child in college, aware of the passage of time and this new stage in life where being a mother becomes more of a label than an active verb.

It’s a clean hurt, an expected one. It’s nothing at all like she feels when she walks by Finn’s old room, emptied of most of his belongings and yet still filled with his memory. That’s a pain that’s tangled and dark deep in her chest, one she’ll live with but never fully heal from.

She doesn’t go into Finn’s room much anymore; it’s a tangible illustration of the gaping hole in her life and her heart, smoothing around the edges but a hole nonetheless. Here in Kurt’s, though - still full of him, still waiting for him, especially with Blaine standing there so alive and vibrant in those adorably red pants - she can pretend for a little while that Finn’s room is just waiting, too, that he’s off living his life like Kurt and someday will walk through the front door and galumph back upstairs where he belongs.

Her next breath is watery and aching as she struggles with that impossible thought, trying to push it away. He’s not coming back. He’s never coming back. Her child, her precious baby, part of her... he’s never coming back.

“Hmm,” Blaine says and closes the top drawer. He opens the next one down and goes through it with careful hands. “Did Kurt move everything around?”

Carole pulls herself back to the present and wills her voice to sound normal. “Yeah,” she says. “When he was home for - “ She only takes a little breath here, just a tiny pause. “ - the funeral he spent some of his time reorganizing his clothes.”

Blaine nods to himself and glances at her over his shoulder with a fond, sad smile. “Yeah. That always makes him feel better.”

She finds a way to smile back. “I know. Looking back, I’m kind of regretting not setting him loose on the kitchen while he was here. My tupperware drawer is a mess.”

He huffs out a laugh. “He probably would have given you a lecture about how to store them so you don’t lose the lids.” He pulls out a box and lifts open the top. “No, those are his cufflinks.” He puts the box back in the drawer. “Hmm.”

“Do you think it’s in New York?” she asks. She slips her feet out of her shoes and rubs them over Kurt’s lovely carpet. He always picks such satisfyingly tactile objects, she thinks, nothing quite usual. She wonders if that’s part of why he likes Blaine, because between his enveloping hugs and his distinct way of dressing Blaine’s both satisfyingly tactile and not quite usual, too.

“I really don’t think Santana would steal it,” he says.

Carole tips her head in disagreement, though he doesn’t see it; she’s known Santana a lot longer than Blaine has. She wouldn’t put anything past her.

“Here we are.” Blaine lifts the lid on another box, this one wooden, and some of the tension drains out of him. “Pocket squares,” he says in triumph. He pulls out a swatch of crimson fabric with a pleased smile. “This is the one.”

“I thought you boys were all going to match in black and white on stage,” she says.

Blaine carefully folds the square, laying it almost tenderly on top of the dresser and tapping it with the tips of his fingers. “Oh, we are. Since Kurt can’t be there to wear it on my behalf, I’m going to carry this in my pants pocket instead.” He tucks the box back into Kurt’s drawer and shuts it neatly.

“I’m sure he’d like to be there, honey,” Carole tells him.

“I know,” Blaine says, picking up the square again and sliding it into the pocket of his pants. He sounds a little sad, but nothing too worrying. “It’s okay. I mean, I’d love him to be, but they’re livestreaming it this year, so he can still see the performances.” His smile blooms again, warm and bright. “And you’ll be there, you and Burt.”

Carole’s smile feels a lot creakier than his looks, but she can’t help but mirror his expression. “We will be,” she says, fiercely proud of the fact. She wants to be. She wants to see everything that Finn’s legacy has created, including all that he put into these kids and this glee club. He would be so proud, and _she_ is so proud of how much it meant to him.

She wishes with all of her heart that _he_ could be there, but since he can’t she’s glad she will be.

“We’re all really happy you’re coming,” Blaine tells her gently, his eyes turning liquid with what looks like understanding as she takes another shaky breath.

She nods briskly; her grief is not his burden to carry, this young man who sometimes seems old beyond his years. Maybe _that_ is why Kurt likes him so much; Kurt can be the same way. “We are, too.” Putting her mom face back on, the one that hides worries and sadness for the sake of her child, she slips her feet back into her shoes and stands up, brushing out the wrinkles on Kurt’s duvet. “You’re going to be great.”

“We’re going to do our best.” Blaine looks down for a moment, unsure and young in an instant, and she knows he must feel a lot of pressure as a senior, a leader, and a featured soloist to get them that trophy. That’s a lot of responsibility, and she knows him well enough to guess how seriously he must be taking it.

She reaches out and touches his arm. “Hey,” she says, “you guys are going to be _incredible_ , Blaine. I know the competition will be tough, but nobody has the heart New Directions does. Trust me. I know. I’ve been a show choir mom for a few years now.”

Blaine’s eyes crinkle with his smile, and he ducks his head again, this time in gratitude. “Yeah, you have,” he says. “Thank you.”

Carole pulls him against her sideways for a second; he doesn’t feel like Finn or even Kurt, but something in the strength and energy in him feels almost _right_ , and the touch soothes something deep inside her, just a little. “Don’t thank me. That’s what moms are here for.”

Blaine smiles up at her as they walk down the hallway. There’s a light in his eyes like he wants to say something but isn’t sure he’s allowed to.

“I know I’m not your mom,” she says, her voice a little thick, because thinking of motherhood is never not going to hurt as a mother without _her_ child, “but someday I’m going to be your mother-in-law, aren’t I?” It’s one of the great joys in her life to have gotten not just a new husband but a new family when she remarried because Kurt has always accepted her so openly, and that family has been even more precious to her now over the past few months without Finn than she could ever have imagined, one of the few things keeping her grounded and sane in this unthinkable world.

“Yes,” Blaine breathes out, all joy and excitement, the way he always is when he talks about marrying Kurt.

“So you don’t have to thank me for mothering you. It’s my job.” _And my pleasure_ , she thinks, because if New Directions have all become her surrogate kids over the years, she gets to _keep_ Blaine. She’ll never gain a daughter in whoever Finn would have ended up marrying, but she will gain a new son. He’s not Finn, but he’s still more family. She still loves him.

Blaine’s eyes are a little damp when he and Carole reach the bottom of the stairs, and he hesitates before giving her another hug in the front hall, tighter than the one he greeted her with.

Carole just holds on, stroking down his back, aware of all of the differences in the shape of his body than the boy she wants to hold most of all and yet still happy to have him there. “You’re going to be great,” she murmurs. “I can’t tell you how proud I am going to be watching you all perform.”

“We hope you will be,” Blaine says with a smile that trembles around the edges, but he takes a breath as he pulls back. “I hope you’ll like it.”

“I know I will,” she tells him, and she’s surprised how much she’s missed being able to encourage a child. She’d spent so much time trying to teach Finn how to be a man over the past few years - how to figure out what he wanted, how to stand on his own two feet, how to spread his wings and fly when his doubts were dragging him down - that it’s odd to feel buoyed by falling back into more intensively nurturing patterns... but then she’d never stopped wanting to do that, too. He’d just needed something different.

“Thanks, Carole,” Blaine says. He pats his pockets and smiles again, his eyes unclouded once more. If her legs feel shaky beneath her, at least he looks grounded and happy from their time together. If only every bit of hurt or insecurity could be solved with a hug and a few quick words.

She makes herself smile at him, impossibly fond of this boy who is nearly a man. “Any time, honey. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“I will,” he says, and his smile flashes wide with excitement. “I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow!”

“See you at the airport,” she says and opens the door for him.

He turns to wave when he’s halfway down the walk just like he always used to when leaving Kurt, walking backwards for a few steps before spinning with a hop back around toward his car. She can barely remember having that much energy; she wonders if she ever did.

She’s glad he came. He hasn’t been around as much since he and Kurt broke up, and she’s missed his presence and steady good nature. It reminds her of better times, of the way things once were. It reminds her of Kurt and Finn bickering in the kitchen, music always too loud, heartbreaks and proms, game nights and family dinners and somehow never anyone around when it was time to take out the trash.

The corner of her mouth turns upward in a sad smile. She loved those times.

Carole watches Blaine pull out of the driveway and then slowly closes the front door. The house is silent again, empty but for her.

Yes, she thinks as she looks around her, it was good that Blaine came. She can breathe more easily when she thinks of him in the house, thinks about him coming back with Kurt again and again over the years, for holidays and other visits, maybe someday with their kids, kids she knows she’ll adore and who will call her Grandma and bring so much light to her life.

But no matter how often they return to fill the house with laughter and love, no matter how she fills her life without them there, no matter how many good things she will do and have over the decades ahead of her, and she _will_... there will always be someone missing. Finn will always be missing.

_Always_.

That thought - that _reality_ , utterly inescapable - chokes her for a second, and she shakes her head and pushes it away.

Life goes on, as hard as it can be sometimes. And life includes lots of other kids who she can still take care of right now, who need that from her.

That’s what important. That’s what matters. That’s what would Finn have wanted.

Carole takes a deep breath and heads up the stairs to start packing for their trip. If she has to avert her eyes when she passes Finn’s room - silent, lifeless, no longer filled with music and dirty laundry and the shatteringly precious presence of a person who was the very definition of home and family to her for nearly two decades - well... she almost always does.

A part of her thinks she may always have to.

But she keeps walking past it, anyway, one foot in front of the other, and counts it as the triumph that it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: I am spoiler-free! Please don't spoil me!


End file.
